I don’t buy or rent a lot of DVDs. I don’t go to the movies all that often, truth be told. It isn’t because I think live performance is superior or anything, it is essentially because growing up in rural New York, we didn’t get out to the movies much. I have never really been in the habit of attending too many movies.

I did read a lot and as such did attend the Lord of the Rings movies when they came out and did ask for the box DVD set for Christmas. Amazon had it on backorder for quite awhile so it just arrived today.

As I was covertly previewing the first five minutes at work today, you know, just to make sure there weren’t any problems with the disk, I got to thinking what a great tool the performers and production team commentary would be for teaching people the basics about the arts.

It would be an expensive undertaking to pull the video production resources together to produce a DVD. However, I think foundations that support audience building and arts education efforts would probably be happy to underwrite the creation of a tool that could be easily duplicated and distributed to serve large numbers of people.

In fact, foundations would probably be more interested in paying for generic educational videos that many organizations could use rather than ones that specifically prepared audiences for shows in an upcoming season.

I think it would be very helpful to people to have the ability to watch a play and then go back and listen to the actors comment on what they might have been feeling during the show (I nearly wet my pants trying not to laugh) or to the director and designers talking about their choices and how it contributes to the feel of the performance.

The same could go for dance and music. A dancer may comment on how their heart soars at a particular place in a ballet even after performing it 50 times or how a piece looks deceptively simple but actually involved hours of practice. Symphonies could break the commentary down by section and conductor, perhaps.

If the commentary was designed well, pointing out what people should look for, explaining the process and providing points of reference to which people can relate, (parallels between elation during performances and sports activities, for example), it could become a powerful educational and intimidation allaying tool.

At the speed with which video can be delivered over the internet, the videos wouldn’t necessarily have to be only available on DVDs at the organization or local library. Arts organizations could have the videos available for download or streaming on their website or on a hosting site specifically designed with the bandwidth to host video.

Heck, maybe the local cable company would be interested in having it in their free video on demand library. Given that they would probably advertise it as a service to their subscribers, the cable company might go as far as add a little bit at the end saying “if you feel like checking out live ballet in your area, here is a listing of companies in your region.”

As I write this, ideas are forming in my head about how it might turn this into a reality. As a presenter, I don’t have an opportunity to do something like this with the groups I bring in because they visit for such a short time. But I do know some local companies that I might inspire and some video production people who might work on it.

Watch this space in the coming months, I might have something to report.