The biggest revolution of the 21st century is the information and communication technology revolution. As mainstream journalism outlets, along with digital archives and print publications, continue to shrink, collapse or become unreliable, how we create and share information is changing rapidly. Wikipedia, crowd-sourced and volunteer-driven, has remained robust and user friendly. Today it is the largest and most used information platform in the world.
Dance+Words’ Wikipedia Dance Project addresses the marked absence of Canadian dance entries on this international encyclopaedia platform by deploying the dance community itself to write new entries and augment existing stubs with new information. This project is designed to address community participation, self-reliance, diversity and inclusiveness. The goal is to build forums, both physical and online, where dance artists from different generations and cultural traditions can converge, share information, conduct research and reflect.
With the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, we have embarked on the first phase of the project. It consists of events in cities across the country, including Wikipedia training sessions and edit-a-thons, panel discussions and other literacy-focused activities.
For an introduction to the topic of artists on the Wikipedia platform, read Wiki ambassador and artist Amber Berson’s concise how-to here.
And, if you know of a notable Canadian dance artist, company or organization that is deserving of a new or improved entry on Wikipedia, please drop us a line at wikipedia [at]dancepluswords[dot]ca
