Tell the artists how you really feel

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Most music lovers sending "tweets" reviews talked about the rain during the Utah Symphony | Utah Opera's Deer Valley performance with ABBA tribute band Waterloo.

Only Robbie Dalley had wit enough, as judged by the arts organization's social media committee, to turn the '70s Swedish trio's song titles into critical barbs as he sent Feedback status updates to his friends.

"'O Fernando,' it just is not going to work out for me since I am already here with someone else!" Dalley texted during the performance. "Knowing me, but do I know you?"

Then there was his remark about one of the band member's strange cod piece. "SOS? Where is the fashion police when you need them?"

Dalley texted his way to the top over the top of more than 30 "facebookers and tweeple," as the committee described them, participating in the symphony and opera's first-ever live review night on July 18.

"I attend semi-regularly anyway," Dalley said. "But it was a fun way for me to introduce my friends to the symphony."

The exercise in almost-immediate feedback is part of a burgeoning trend among national and local arts groups, who are using social media to create another form of dialogue with and better understanding of the people who matter most: ticket-buyers who, despite tough economic times, might open their wallets for something with a twist.

For one local fantasy writer, Phillip Jones, 38, of Taylorsville, the immediate feedback loop is the very reason he writes -- and collects comments from readers at Costco.

Clapping your hands or shouting "boo!" is now older than old school. The Gong Show , one of the '70s most popular shows mixing critical schmaltz with real-life suspense, gave instant feedback for performers both humor and drama, a televised tool that hibernated for years until American Idol . Now arts organizations have figured out how to make the process more stealth and a little more classy.

Seattle Opera this summer unveiled a video production chronicling the experience of an "opera newbie" who witnessed first hand the company's rehearsal and staging of Wagner's mammoth Ring cycle.

Such intimacy contrasts with US | UO's more democratic exercise, which lets anyone with a mobile keypad offer up critical dish during a performance.

The symphony's instant review contest was launched after the board heard of theater companies in other states hosting Twitter nights for audience feedback during intermission, said Crystal Young-Otterstrom, audience development and print media manager for the US | UO. "As far as we know, we're the first symphony and opera company to do this," she said. "It gets them thinking like a music critic for a night, and I think every music audience fancies themselves as a music critic. We're definitely going to do this again."

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, meanwhile, is employing paper ballots. At this week's season-opening concert at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, the audience will have the chance to vote for one of four short dance pieces choreographed around a pre-selected theme of social change rendered in "tongue-in-cheek" style.

The aim of adding a reality-show tinged vote to a concert was to help engage the audience, said Jessica Ballard, marketing director. "People really like that interaction, as opposed to 'Here's the performance, and here's the audience.'"

Using ballots placed in their programs, the dance company's audience will select from the work of four Utah choreographers: Kay Andersen, of Southern Utah University; Eric Handman, of the University of Utah; Erik Stern, of Weber State University; and Doris Trujillo, of Utah Valley University. The winner receives a $1,000 cash prize, plus their work will be added to the dance company's touring repertoire.

Stern said he applauds the company's innovation and is proud to have his work in the line-up, yet he has purposefully kept himself in the dark as to how the process works. "Let's not confuse a vote and say that's all that characterizes audience participation," Stern said. "Participation is also how carefully you watch something and how profoundly you're moved. This is simply another level of that. All art is participatory by nature, especially if it's live."

Social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Internet media such as YouTube cannot replace live performance, said Charlotte Boye-Christiansen, the company's artistic director. It's art that binds performers and audience in the texture of one moment in time.

But the act of feedback and voting affords an invaluable moment for audiences to reflect on the specifics of what they expect from and appreciate about art.

"Do you want to be provoked? Or just be pleased? Do you want to think, as opposed to just experience the work?" Boye Christiansen said. "These are very interesting questions. They force people to be specific about their choices."

And such feedback is mutual, with the exchange benefitting artists as well. Boye Christiansen said dancers and choreographers both benefit from the competition guidelines, which reveal weaknesses and strengths.

For Jones, the Taylorsville man who is writing a series of fantasy novels, inventing a process to include readers comments into his drafts was a way to improve his storytelling.

Waking from a sweat-soaked nightmare one October morning in 2007, he awoke to write down his dream's every detail in one 39-hour sitting. A huge chunk of what would later become his "Crystal Moon" series of self-published fantasy novels was complete.

"But because my writing skills were minimal and my audience was zero, I wanted a way to gain fans and also make certain the first story I created was strong," Jones said.

Selling multiple copies of his first draft behind a table at Costco all over the Salt Lake Valley, Jones folded his e-mail and cell phone number into the flap as part of the bargain. After multiple e-mails and phone calls ripe with advice, praise and even scorn, he's fast closing in on the deadline for comments to publish a finished and final draft in December.

"A lot of this grew out of my respect for the audience," he said. I want to see them get an incredible product. You can imagine how fast you have to improve when you have people carping on you."

For arts groups, who are creatively seeking new ways to harness feedback, perhaps the use of social networking tools reveals something particularly relevant about audiences of our times.

"A lot of people are updating [on cell phones] anyway during a performance, so this is a way to keep it organized," Young-Otterstrom said.