This has been an exciting week for three dance organizations -- and there is a common and unlikely thread that ties their accomplishments together: geography.

Dance artists and practitioners in the Champaign-Urbana (C-U) area have it made; they have access to a respected University dance department and a vibrant local dance community, and they are just a short drive away from one of the central hubs for dance in the U.S. – Chicago. This July, Dance/USA, a national service organization for professional dance, is giving C-U residents a great reason to make the drive.

In case you haven’t heard, Dance/USA (the national service organization for professional dance) is holding its annual conference in Chicago July 13th through 16th.  This 2011 convening is anticipated to be the orgs biggest gathering yet of artistic directors, presenters, executive directors, company managers, artists, choreographers, marketing gurus, development divas and (thanks to a one-day scholarship – thank you!) even a little blogger like me.  The jam-packed schedule — here — includes receptions, roundtable discussions, plenary speakers, multiple break out sessions (management, artistry, audience engagement and technology), city tours and a number of performances at some of the city’s best dance venues.

Pico Iyer, travel writer and philosopher, spoke this morning at the Dance/USA Chicago conference. From the Green Room, Dance/USA's eJournal, is re-releasing Iyer's inspiring Q&A from earlier this summer.

Prominent members of Chicago’s dance scene are excited about Dance/USA‘s national conference (more here) coming in July!  What does it mean for Chicago to be hosting the national conference this summer?

I am unequivocal about the need for most artists and companies to find the required resources to create digital content. Unfortunately, this demands a complete rethinking because most non-profit dance company business models allocate resources to creating work for the stage and for marketing those works, with little, if any, surplus remaining to invest in creating media content.

Amid the intensity to embrace and understand the new, it is worthwhile to consider enduring dynamics that apply to an old yet evergreen story: the care and feeding of a volunteer patron base. With an eye toward continuous improvement in how we manage relationships and cultivate commitment from patrons, it is worth reviewing – and recommitting to – skills that have always made a difference in forging strong relationships with our most dedicated supporters.

We cannot change the need for relative thinness in this visual art form. But we can find better ways to communicate with the dancers, always aware of their vulnerability and always recognizing them as talented young people rather than body types.

Dancer wellbeing represents a glaring and puzzling concern within the dance world. The physical and psychological health of dancers becomes especially tricky to foster within an environment where worth is often based on physical appearance. Many other factors, such as limited funding and resources, also complicate the matters, making it a difficult terrain for dance professionals to navigate.

To write—to dance, to make music—is to become incomparably affluent inside and to have a sense of possibility, of freedom, of real power that nothing else can rival.