The Winger » Ask The Contributors!

Ask The Contributors!

February 20, 2008 at 4:59 am · Filed under dance, recommendations, ALEX, winger board, questions, contributors

ALEX WONG
Miami City Ballet
Miami, Florida USA
BIO | POSTS

Hey Wingers! Sorry I haven’t posted for so long, we’ve been so busy with performances and rehearsals that I haven’t really had too much time to organize together a post. Something is coming soon though!

I was however scrolling through the site today and I realized that I hadn’t visited “The Winger Boards” for quite some time!

I think most of us have forgotten the boards are here, but I think they’re a very useful and interesting tool for the readers.

http://thewinger.com/mboard/index.php

Now at these boards, there is a section called “Ask The Contributors” and I just wanted to make myself available for anyone who has any questions about anything! I think most of the contributors don’t get too much time to browse around the boards, but if you’d like to ask some questions or discuss anything, your more than welcome to discuss it under the comments of this post, or just send me a friendly reminder by leaving a comment here to go check out the board and answer some questions!

Hope you are all well!

Permalink

Barbara said,

February 20, 2008 @ 1:01 pm

Thanks for your kind offer, Alex. I’ve pretty much given up on the Winger boards - it appears that none of the contributors actually read them or if they do, they don’t respond. As you say, probably not enough time.

Cathy said,

February 20, 2008 @ 1:40 pm

the inter mission has discussion boards too, and they are active!

tonya said,

February 20, 2008 @ 4:45 pm

I second Barbara, but thank you for your offer, Alex! Cathy, do the professional dancers, like David, ever participate in the discussion boards though? This is one of the things that we discussed a bit at the blogger get-together sponsored by Movmnt — the need for someone to be at the helm to organize things and not just let them go off on their own — and the people whom everyone longs to hear from actively participating. One thing that initially made the Winger such an amazingly fantastic thing was that David and Kristin would write their posts, and we could all comment, communicating with people of such enormous stature in the dance world. It was unheard of to be able to “talk” to the people you so admired that way. Unfortunately,to be honest, I feel like that doesn’t really exist that much any more and I’m not sure why, but and it saddens me… Thanks for your attempt to re-vamp that, Alex!

Cathy said,

February 20, 2008 @ 7:16 pm

Yeah, to be honest the discussions that have been going on over the inter mission are mostly among the members - I just thought there could be some sort of ask the contributors over there, but I’m not sure;
as the board is actually cool because it is specifically a ‘’winger'’ thing whereas there it’s something more general, more open.
Things to think about…

matthew said,

February 20, 2008 @ 10:27 pm

I actually wasn’t aware that there was an “ask the contributors” section on the board! Thanks for bringing it to my attention Alex. As everyone knows, I’m pretty much an open book….so ask away!

Although it’s usually easier to just get in touch with me through my posts here or on Ranting Details. Or at rantingdetails@yahoo.com

Hope everyone is doing well!

carla korbes said,

February 21, 2008 @ 12:27 am

Alex, thank you for the remainder about the board. I am a contributor of the Winger and I have to be honest and admit that I have not contributed with to many answers in this board. I also feel that is never to late to start, so I would like to unite with you and try to re-start the board conversations at the winger. To people like Barbara and Tonya, I am sorry about your disappointment on the board. I do feel “scared” promising I will answer all questions, but I am committed in doing my best to try to communicate with people online.
So what about the old question posted in the board? Should we try to answer them or should we just move on and try new questions?
I hope we can be inspired by Alex’s attempt to revive conversations at the winger.

Shuriu said,

February 21, 2008 @ 2:26 am

What I particularly enjoy about The Winger …
… seeing the behind-the-scenes photos of professionals in class, rehearsing, from the wings, & occasional forays into other environments (the NYCB tutus on the mannequins at the formal dinner with GUARDS next to the jewelry!)
… Dr. Rosenthal’s posts

What I would enjoy & that relates to Alex’s offer:
… an occasional post on something a dancer struggles with and how they’ve worked with it lately.
For example: still feeling like my right knee is tweaked & off for week 2. Finally went to the chiropractor who found lots of misalignments! Turns out my left leg was shorter than my right by 2 inches because of my heavy rehearsal schedule & recent bouts with insomnia. Too keyed up after performances lately.

Or still struggling with the timing on the new Forsythe piece. I was talking to my pianist friend about it & he mentioned that I kept doing the piece like I take class. He suggested that I pretend I’m like the guy & the girl in the Motorola Razor phone commercial and move like that commercial is edited. It felt weird at first and then I figured out what he meant. Here’s a little YouTube posting to show the new results

Barbara said,

February 21, 2008 @ 1:08 pm

Thanks Carla and Matt! It looks like there might be a real movement afoot to re-energize Ask the Contributors. Matt, you’ve always been one of the most active contributors and it’s obvious that you read the posts and respond to them. Carla, it might be hard to answer all the old questions on the board, but if you scan them and one or two look of interest maybe you could give it a try. I think many times responses to comments could be made right here on the Winger without going to the Board. But sometimes there are topics not being discussed here so a visit to the Board from time to time would be appreciated. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful - I can only imagine how busy you all are and this site has always been one of my favorite daily pleasures. So in the spirit of things, I’ll post a light-hearted question on Ask the Contributors. This is a query I made on another dance blog and got some interesting responses. I’d love to hear what dancers in the know have to say. Thanks in advance!

kristin sloan said,

February 21, 2008 @ 4:06 pm

Hi everybody.

I completely agree with your sentiments and have been working on ways of trying to refine what’s happening here.
Thanks so much to Alex (and Carla, and everyone commenting) for bringing this up!!

Time is always an issue for everyone, but if the desire is there on both sides (contributors and readers) and it sounds like it is, then we can try to find an efficient and effective way of making it happen.

-I’m thinking perhaps twice a month, (or perhaps every Wednesday if there is enough interest) The Winger does an “ask the contributors” post, about a certain topic. (or if contributors want to have a Wednesday each and rotate, that may work too, but would be difficult to maintain/schedule).

-I’ll make sure to notify all the contributors when the post goes up so they can participate in the discussion if they like.

-If anyone (readers or contributors) would like to suggest a topic for these, i’ll create a special email address to send those requests to.

What do you think?

xx
s

matthew said,

February 21, 2008 @ 4:21 pm

I think that sounds great Kristin! Plus I think the readers would love it if they knew that something specific was going to happen on a given day. A complaint that I hear from readers sometimes when I meet them is the infrequency of posts given that we have about 25 (?) contributors. Schedules of course get in the way, but it would be nice to have a few “scheduled” posts such as the “ask the contributors” idea so that even if it’s a hard week for the posters, something gets started.

Barbara said,

February 21, 2008 @ 5:45 pm

I LIKE it!

Alex Wong said,

February 21, 2008 @ 6:20 pm

Yes, I think that sounds great. It’s great that questions can be submitted and there can be a little question and answer part.

What if perhaps questions were submitted whever, and every ______ (whatever day) the contributors could just log on and comment under that post to have it open for discussion? That might make it easier rather than assigning one question to a certain contributor. Just some ideas.

Deb Young said,

February 21, 2008 @ 10:10 pm

Alex, quick heads-up: I posted a question for you in Ask the Contributors.

Many thanks,
Deb Young

Alex Wong said,

February 22, 2008 @ 12:35 am

Hi Deb, I’ve answered your question on the board, check it out if you get a chance!

tonya said,

February 22, 2008 @ 5:04 am

I think that’s a great idea, Kristin! I know, I realize everyone’s really busy… I agree with Matt (and I think I may be one of the people he’s talking about )

Taylor said,

February 22, 2008 @ 6:36 am

I’m a little late in commenting (hence the time issue mentioned above…) but I agree this is a good idea! I’m a contributor and think it would be fun to answer reader questions every so often! I think it would get readers more engaged, too.