Dance Your Plan

Getting people to understand the intricacies of planning can be a challenge. The modern-day emphasis on public participation is an effort to get people involved, but it's frankly not too appealing for most people to attend public hearings about zoning amendments and setback changes. But those zoning amendments and setback changes could be pretty important. Planners need to try harder to connect with the people their work affects to explain its importance. It's time to break from convention. One possible way is dancing.

Granted, this seems like a pretty stupid idea, but think abstractly. Think about the principle here.

There was an interesting interview on NPR recently about a dance contest for scientists who try to interpret their doctoral dissertations through the international language of dance. The "Dance Your PhD" competition was created by John Bohannon, a correspondent with Science magazine, and winners were just announced for the second annual competition. Contestants were to utilize interpretive dance to explain the often incredibly complex theses of their doctoral dissertations. 36 videos of danced PhDs are posted online, and they are pretty ridiculous to watch.

Vince LiCata of Johns Hopkins University won the Professor category for this interpretation of his thesis "Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids".

Christin Murphy of the University of South Florida is a runner-up in the Graduate Student category for this vision of "Hydrodynamic Trail Detection in Marine Organisms". Props on the music; the Beach Boys and marine biology are nicely paired.

Barbara Allen of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute brings what may be the most relevant to planners in her interpretation of the dissertation "Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes".

There's a lot of really great stuff here, and the absurdity of it is almost transfixing. You've got silver-haired professors, teams of graduate students, dance studios, disco, avant garde classical music oddities, and a predominating air of general over-the-top-ness. This is nerdy fun at its nerdiest and funnest.

It's also incredibly engaging.

That's what planners and policymakers have been clamoring for. They want to engage the public. Well, as you can see, engagement is all in the presentation. Slideshows are useful and we all love a good map, but just think how much more interested regular people would be in some proposed plan if they saw a more non-conventional presentation. Is dancing the best way to get people interested in planning projects? I don't know. I'd guess it probably isn't, but it is a new way to think about presenting ideas -- and one that is more familiar and accessible than a stuffy public meeting with a roll call and minutes.

How about a dramatic realization, like they do in those crime shows? Or some sort of a game? There are all kinds of ways to refresh the idea of public presentation.

I'm not saying we should all go dance our proposals to the people of the world, but maybe it's not such a silly idea. Dancing a plan obviously won't tell people everything they need to know about the proposal, but it would definitely draw some attention, and maybe even get someone interested enough to find out more. Once they understand what's being proposed they're better able to interact with the idea and express what they think about it. Isn't that the point of public participation?