While sitting in a lecture on Music Publishing and Copyright in 2009, former L’Acadco dancer and now 360ARTISTS President, Simone Harris, made a decision to educate dancers about their rights under copyright law in the same way that musicians can access information on how to protect their musical product.
According to Harris, “choreographers in the Caribbean region have for far too long been treated as the forgotten creators of original content….they have just as much legal protection from infringments as musicians and should be aware of their rights under law.”
Since that moment of committement to empowering choreographers,360ARISTS has partenerd with the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston Jamaia, eNKompan.E, Re:Designing Legal and Jane of all Trades to produce Jamaica’s first dedicated dance copyright workshop.
The workshop which was held on April 30 (the final day of Jamaica’s Intellectual Property Week) featured presentations from Phillippa Davis of the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO), Mrs. Degrasse-Johnson, Director of the Edna Manley College – School of Dance, Valerie Sutton, creator of the DanceWriting dance notation technique, the Dance Notation Bureau, and other dance notation and dance copyright experts.
Harris and the Choreography is Copyrightable team, which includes, Neila Ebanks and Kayanne Taylor Esq., believe that this project has signaled a new day for the dance community across the region and are committed to taking Choreography is Copyrightable into as many places and spaces as physically possible.
The team has been invited to host the workshop in Barbados during the Caribbean Educative Arts Festival in October. They hope to host another workshop in Trinidad by 2011.
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