balletrising

In my last post I highlighted the growing need for artists and arts organisations to monetise performances and events in order supplement revenue from tickets and to help in extreme situations like a global quarantine. This time Id like to talk about streaming classes for students.

Now Is When We Need Web Monetisation

The past few months I have been teaching ballet and fitness classes at a small studio called Zhembrovskyy in my home city, Amsterdam. Its a wonderful studio that a former colleague on mine from the Dutch National Ballet started a few years ago. He has a growing number of dedicated people coming to take dance and fitness classes and due to the success of the studio he opened a second location this past week. Unfortunately COVID-19 has struck and not only have theatres around the world closed but the schools where the fans go to take class and where the professionals go to train have closed as well. There is a growing number of organisation, from the worlds largest theatres to small local schools, that are now feeling the financial pinch.

I am a freelance teacher. I get paid by the hour and if I am not teaching I am not paying my rent or buying food. While I was thinking of ways to help theatres stay afloat I have also been considering how my employer might do so as well.

A year ago a friend told me about a website where you could connect with people looking for online classes to have a one-on-one lesson, or group lessons via split screen, in whatever you want. She had been teaching classes on that site but unfortunately it seems to have gone under. I think this could be the solution for the extreme circumstances we find our selves in at the moment or in the future when people really get attached to a specific teacher but they are now living in another city. Imagine being able to go to a website and look up teachers anywhere in the world similar to how you order an Uber. You check the reviews and decide if thats the teacher for you. Likewise the teacher can look at the student and decide if they want to teach that class. The price would be set, the payment is made and a two way live stream goes live. Its clearly not ideal to be doing ballet in your kitchen or living room but its better than nothing and it just might help people fight the cabin fever and keep small business alive.

I would love to discuss with anyone how who might want to help me build a dance and fitness class network around something like XRPL and ILP for payments and bring one more use case for web monetisation into the performing arts world.

Thank you all again and looking forward to your ideas and comments!

balletrising@gmail.com

Casey Herd