SYREN Dance, one of my few clients , at least so far, that has nothing at all to due with the human uterus. (Note: They *are* a modern dance company, this means every day I check my email their is a 5% chance I will see a notice saying SYREN's next performance will be entitled Womb: Dance of the Uterus. I'm not sure I would be able to handle this, but I knew the risks going in).
It all started very innocently, Kate Mehan mentioned that the dance company she was starting up with Lynn Peterson was thinking about getting a website together. I responded by saying I knew a bit of HTML and would be happy to create the site for them. You see I had created a personal website three years ago, it had a small dog on it that ran back and forth while wagging a happy little tale. I did not create the dog, or his animation, but thats not the point. Clearly I "knew" HTML. Kate thought this was a swell idea (she didn't know about the dog), she trusted I knew what I was talking about and we went from there.
I would like to point out that SYREN had a strict, "no running dogs" policy when it came to site design. In fact after repeated attempts on my part to have something, *anything* moving I was eventually told. "Nothing should be moving. Please stop." I tried to sneak in a single image with boxes moving over it (I was trying to create a technicality here) and was told the photo was fine but the boxes would have to stop sliding around or they would have to go.
The boxes went.
I would like to point out that I was suffering from an illness many designers suffer from, its called "Flashophenia" (note: spellcheaker just suggested I was trying to spell "Splashinesses" I had no idea this was even a word). This illness is brought on by going into Barnes and Noble and buying any book that has the following two words on them, "Flash" and "Beginners". I'm happy to say I have since recovered and no longer suffer from the urge to have dancing bunnies pop up on the screen when someone puts the mouse pointer on a menu item. (I know what your thinking, "what if the bunnies held up little signs saying what was on the page you were about to click to?", to you I say, put the Flash book down! Go outside, get some fresh air... then send me the code you create for the bunnies, it's going to be awesome.)
It's been four years since then, the site has been built, torn down, rebuilt, edited and now, once again stands on the edge of demolition with a newer better model on the horizon. So is the process of web design. It's all madness.
In closing....
SYREN's latest performance "Abravanel" (clip here: http://www.syrendance.org/Media.htm) appears to have struck a cord with the public. Watch and enjoy.
So there ya go, a brief history of how all this started. (Technically it all started when Al Gore created the internet, but whatever.) Hope you enjoyed it.
